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Month Archives: September 2007

by
Tony Perkins

September 28, 2007

Homosexuals organizers of San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair are promoting the event with a mockery of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. The poster portrays Christ and His disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists.

Expect more of this type of blasphemous attack on Christianity if hate crimes and ENDA passes. Under the protection of the federal government radical homosexuals will no doubt increase their provocation in an effort to move to the next step of their agenda - hate speech laws that will silence the Church. Their speech, such as this, will be protected but Romans 1 will not, it will be hate speech.

Will Charles Schumer and Ted Kennedy, who championed the Hate Crimes bill in the Senate, denounce this attack on Christianity?

By-the-way, my friend Bill Donahue from the Catholic League is calling for a boycott of Miller Brewing which is a sponsor of the event and has their trade mark emblem on the poster. While I support him in his efforts, I am not sure I can help too much with the boycott.

by
Family Research Council

September 27, 2007

Some people may laugh when I say this but there are still kids today in the U.S. who look up to elected officials. I did as a kid, as a young adult and I do today. Being public figures, politicians owe to society more then just obeying the laws they pass, they also have an obligation to live their lives as closely as possible to the role models that some see them as and when they falter they must think about the disgrace they are bringing to their office and to the larger majority of outstanding public servants. Too often a politician thinks that if they have done nothing illegal then they have done nothing wrong forgetting morality and laws are two different things. They do not seem to have this problem when athletes conduct themselves immorally - Congress is usually the first to condemn and call for hearings.

When it is discovered that a homosexual escort service has been run out of a Congressmans house then that Congressman should resign. Or when an elected official tries to (and in some cases succeeds) have sexual relations with a young page or intern then that politician should resign. When a Senator pleads guilty to a charge related to soliciting sex in a public restroom they should resign and not submit Congress or their fine state to any further embarrassment. Additionally if a Senator conducts an Appropriations Committee hearing and allows, even encourages, the audience to heckle a respected U.S. General perhaps it is time to end an already too long political career.

The further we define deviancy down the more likely we all become a nation of deviants. Just as politicians are compelled to resign when they are exposed as financially corrupt with the public purse - they should feel the same compulsion when they are morally corrupt with the public trust.

by
Michael Fragoso

September 24, 2007

Recent reports from the Vatican show that Pope Benedict will use his upcoming talk at the United Nations to deliver a powerful warning over climate change. Allegedly the Holy Father will seek to make the prevention of climate change a moral obligation for us Catholics throughout the world. Of course, the Church has long taught that we have a clear obligation to be good stewards of our planet, hearkening back to Genesis. The actual policy obligations that stewardship entails, however, are debatable propositions on which reasonable people can disagree according to the determinations of prudence. Pope Benedict is possibly the greatest mind of our age, but these reports from the left remind me of an exchange from Brideshead Revisited:

Fr. Mowbray: Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said [the climate must be changing], would that be bound to happen?

Rex Mottram: Oh, yes Father.

Fr. Mowbray: But supposing it didnt?

Rex Mottram: I suppose it would be sort of [changing] spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it…

by
Cathy Ruse

September 24, 2007

There’s so much that needs to be said in response to today’s pathetic editorial. The following statements, at least, deserve comment:

There are distressingly few women willing to donate their eggs for experiments at the frontiers of this promising science….Many were likely deterred by the time, effort and pain required - including daily hormone injections and minor surgery - to retrieve the eggs.

Not to mention the possibility of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, cancer, and death, complications which the New York Times editors must regard as inconvenient to their message.

And they were almost certainly discouraged by the meager compensation […] These restrictions are meant to protect the women against exploitation, but they have created a dearth of egg donors for stem cell research.

In other words, some people are concerned about the exploitation of women but all we know is that there aren’t enough women giving up their eggs — this is offensive.

Scientists need to develop new stem cell lines genetically matched to patients with diseases like diabetes or Parkinson’s. They typically take the nucleus of a patient’s skin cell and inject it into an egg whose nucleus has been removed.

Obscuring the truth of what this process is might be expected from smaller papers, but the NYT eds ought to have the [wherewithal] to use the word cloning, since that is where so much of the controversy lies.

If all goes well, the desired stem cell can be derived from the result.

An “embryo” is now a “result.” Masterful. If the NYT eds had done even a little research before opining on the subject, they’d have learned that all has never gone well: stem cells have never been derived from a cloned human embryo.

With few human eggs available, some privately financed stem cell scientists are studying animal eggs to see if they can work the same magic when injected with a human nucleus.

The magic has yet to be worked. The NYT eds are going out of their way

to look silly.

That may send shivers of apprehension through people who imagine rogue scientists creating grotesque half-human, half-animal creatures in the laboratory. But a thorough examination of the process by British regulators should alleviate such fears…there would be remarkably little animal - only about 0.1percent - in the mix.

by
Jared Bridges

September 21, 2007

It looks like — for now, at least — that Planned Parenthood’s bait-and-switch tactic of building a new Aurora, Illinois clinic under a false name has backfired:

CHICAGO (AP) A suburban Planned Parenthood clinic prohibited from opening after anti-abortion activists raised questions about how it received its building permits will stay closed for the near future.

U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle on Thursday rejected a motion that could have allowed the clinic in Aurora to open as soon as Friday and predicted a long legal fight for Planned Parenthood.

While the case is far from over, it’s good to see Planned Parenthood’s duplicitous practices acknowledged and left unrewarded. The fact that the nation’s largest abortion provider applied for its building permits under the name of “Gemini Office Development” is very telling.

by
Jared Bridges

September 18, 2007

Back in July, FRC’s Washington Update took notice of an Aurora, Illinois Planned Parenthood Clinic which surreptitiously began construction disguised as the “Gemini Health Center,” only to let community residents (and construction workers) know that it was really a new location of America’s largest abortion provider.

CNS News is now reporting that the clinic’s opening (for now, at least) has been blocked:

(CNSNews.com) - A federal judge has at least temporarily prevented the nation’s biggest abortion provider from opening a new $7.5 million clinic in Aurora, Ill., while the city government investigates charges that Planned Parenthood used secrecy and fraud to obtain permission to build the 22,000-square-foot facility.

U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle, Sr., on Monday gave Aurora officials 24 hours to file a response to a request from Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area (PPCA) for an injunction that would have forced the city to allow the new building to open on Tuesday as planned.

A hearing is set for Thursday that awaits Planned Parenthood’s response.

by
Jared Bridges

September 18, 2007

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed suit against God Friday, asking a court to order the Almighty and his followers to stop making terrorist threats.

The suit (.pdf), filed in a Nebraska district court, contends that God, along with his followers of all persuasions, “has made and continues to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons.” Those threats are credible given God’s history, Chambers’ complaint says.

Believe it or not, this is from the AP, not The Onion. The senator is even taking pro-active steps to serve papers:

The lawsuit indicates that Chambers attempted to make God appear in order to serve him by saying “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” but the Almight declined, like many defendants, to make it easy for a plaintiff to serve him with court papers.

Something tells me that this won’t turn out so well for Sen. Chambers…

The L.A. Times reported Monday that “Planned Parenthood’s clinic here in central Missouri performs about 600 first-trimester abortions a year, drawing patients from areas several hours away. Surgical abortions take place in two small exam rooms as the patient, often sedated with a Valium, lies on a padded table, her feet in stirrups.” The hall is “dimly lighted” and after the abortions the mothers are taken “to a small, spare recovery room” which “is crowded, the vinyl recliners positioned so close to one another, patients could hold hands.”[1]

It is inhumane to subject mothers to such overcrowded post-abortion facilities. Planned Parenthood enjoys an annual profit of over $50 million as the United States’ largest abortion provider,[2] but a clinic pleads poverty in complying with a new Missouri law[3] requiring the same conditions for abortion patients as other surgical patients.

Though the L.A. Times article admits to the crowding, it misleads the public in several ways. The article conceals how the Missouri law applies to all abortions equally, and the federal judge’s injunction against the law has the effect of permitting second and third trimester abortions to be performed at overcrowded clinics. The judge heard arguments Monday on making his injunction permanent.

The L.A. Times quotes three individuals who benefit from the abortion industry before quoting a defense of this law: “We’re applying the same standards of healthcare to abortion clinics as we are to other medical facilities,” said Pam Fichter, development director of Missouri Right to Life.

Point-by-Point Rebuttal

Point 1: “A first-trimester surgical abortion takes about two minutes.”

False. It takes many times longer than that, even if there are no complications.[4] When incomplete, the abortion is repeated on the same mother. If there are complications, then even more is required. Some abortions are done under general anesthesia, which of course takes longer still.

Tonsillectomies and colonoscopies have been subject to this Missouri law, and they do not require any more time than abortions.

Point 2: “After, patients at the Planned Parenthood clinic here walk down a dimly lighted hall to a small, spare recovery room, where they rest in recliners, a box of tissues by each chair. Most are cleared to go home after 15 minutes.”

Misleading: Obviously patients “are cleared to go home” so quickly because the clinic is overcrowded, and early departure is needed to ease the crowding. Patients who undergo surgery other than abortion are not told to go home so quickly, and it is inhumane to treat mothers this way after abortions.

Point 3: “They have enacted the most far-reaching regulations in the nation — dictating the physical layout, staffing and record-keeping policies of any facility that performs five or more abortions a month, including private doctors’ offices that regularly prescribe the abortion pill.”

Misleading: This law is no different from what is required for other ambulatory surgery centers. The complaining Planned Parenthood clinic does surgical abortion, so the point about the abortion pill does not apply to it. As to doctors’ offices, very few prescribe this dangerous abortion pill, which causes bleeding, pain and higher complications. It is reasonable to require safe facilities of providers who do profit from abortion.

Point 4: “The law would put providers of five or more abortions a month in the same regulatory category as outpatient surgical centers that perform a wide range of procedures, some under general anesthesia, including tonsillectomies, cardiac catheterization, hernia repair, cataract removal and colonoscopy.”

Misleading: Abortion is often done under general anesthesia, which is more serious, while the other surgeries above are often done without general anesthesia. There is no reason why abortionists should get by with facilities less adequate than what is required for the less serious tonsillectomies or colonoscopies.

References:

1. Stephanie Simon, “Facilities that regularly provide first-trimester terminations including the pill version may be regulated as outpatient surgical centers. Two of the state’s three clinics would have to close,” Los Angeles Times (Sept. 10, 2007),

3. Missouri merely extended a law that already exists for ambulatory surgical centers. Missouri’s Ambulatory Surgical Center Licensing Law (“the Act”) was amended effective August 28, 2007 (codified at section 197.200 of the Revised Missouri Statutes). Prior to the amendment the Act defined an ambulatory surgical center as any “establishment operated primarily for the purpose of performing surgical procedures or primarily for the purpose of performing childbirths and which does not provide … accommodations for patients to stay more than twenty-three hours ….” The amendment expands the definition to include any establishment that performs five or more first trimester abortions per month or any second or third trimester abortions.